Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle Fire tablet, which started shipping this week, costs $201.70 to make, a research firm said Friday. That's $2.70 more than Amazon charges for it.

The analysis by IHS indicates that Amazon is, at least initially, selling the tablet at a loss that it hopes to cover through sales of books and movies for the device. The manufacturing cost of a new gadget usually comes down over time as chips become cheaper.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told The Associated Press in September that the company's goal was to make a small profit from the hardware, but as a retail company, Amazon was willing to live with a smaller margin than most electronics companies would. "We want the hardware device to be profitable and the content to be profitable. We really don't want to subsidize one with the other," Bezos said.

IHS's estimate includes the cost of components and assembly, but not the costs of development, marketing or packaging. The most expensive part of the Kindle Fire is the 7-inch (17-centimeter) color touch screen, which costs $87. Amazon kept the cost of the tablet low compared to Apple Inc.'s iPad and similar tablets by making it smaller — the screen is half the size of that for the iPad — keeping the amount of memory low and excluding a camera and microphone.

But the difference in manufacturing cost is much smaller than the difference in retail price: IHS puts the cost of the basic iPad 2 model at just under $300, while Apple sells it for $499.

Some people want a tablet but don't want to shell out big bucks for it. For those frugal shoppers, this week was special, as it marked the release of the $200 Amazon Kindle Fire and the $250 Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. Which is a better buy? I tried both for a wide range of tasks--reading books, buying and watching movies, listening to music, browsing the Web and answering email--and found that each has its own strengths and weaknesses. As a result, the right one for you may depend on what you want to do with it. (I pick my favorite for each task below.)


If you're in the market for a color e-reader, the Nook Tablet has the clear advantage, with its superior layouts and more readable, less glary display. But if you're committed to buying and renting media from Amazon, the Kindle Fire may be what you're looking for, despite its shortcomings.

To bring their tablets in at a relatively low price, Amazon and Barnes & Noble had to make sacrifices. As a result, neither tablet matches the versatility of the Apple iPad 2, or even the capabilities of a well-appointed Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablet, such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus.

Though the Nook Tablet has slightly better specs than the Kindle Fire (including 1GB of memory versus 512MB), they didn't deliver dramatically different performance, and both have their share of glitches.
But a tablet's overall performance may not be as important as itd ability to do what you want it to do well. Here's my take on which tablet is better at various tasks.


Winner: Nook Tablet

Apple Inc on Thursday released a software update for its iOS 5 operating system to fix complaints on the performance of the new iPhone 4S battery.


The software update also addresses some security issues, including a flaw in the operating system that may allow hackers to build apps that secretly install programs to steal data.

"Arab Spring" and "Royal Wedding" were on Wednesday deemed the top phrases of 2011, while late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is the year's top name, according to a global survey of the English language.

Nov. 10 is the 10th anniversary of the Apple iPod going on sale in U.S. By the start of this year Apple had sold over 300 million iPod units.

According to StatCounter, Firefox was the second most used browser in the world in October with a 26 percent market share. Microsoft’s IE is first with a 40 percent share and Google’s Chrome is gaining ground with 25 percent of the global web browser market.

When Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, haters declared what would become the world’s most popular phone dead in the water because it didn’t (and still doesn’t) support Adobe Flash. Everyone laughed at Apple. How stupid and arrogant could Steve Jobs really be? Countless forums and jibes at Apple’s expense followed. Fans of other operating systems touted their superiority

Facebook could be the largest social networking site in the planet right now, that’s why obviously it’ll be the main target for hackers and spammers. It’s quite alarming that more than 600,000 Facebook accounts get hacked daily. So do you think Facebook is doing enough to eradicate these security issues?

Finally after a long wait for Nokia’s ultimate flagship phone, N9 have gone out officially running the last breath of Meego. And what makes this Nokia flagship really interesting is that it represents the company’s last high-end device as an independent player. The N9 as we look could be the gravestone for Meego, as future flagship from Nokia will utilize Windows Phone and Microsoft’s related services.


Engadget reviews : Interestingly cited that the Nokia N9 “puts any lingering doubts about Nokia’s engineering chops to rest.” As, “N9 delivers a double punch with gorgeous hardware and brilliant software. It’s arguably the first competitive flagship phone to come out of Espoo since the launch of the original iPhone — a stunning feat when you consider how far behind the company was even just a year ago.” Check out here the full review of Nokia N9.

Symantec said it traced the attacks to a computer system owned by a Chinese man in his 20s in the central province of Hebei. It said that when contacted, the man provided a contact who would perform "hacking for hire."  Symantec said it could not determine whether the Chinese man was a lone attacker, whether he had a direct or indirect role or whether he hacked the targets for someone else. It called him Covert Grove based on a translation of his Chinese name. The U.S. and Chinese governments have accused each other of being involved in industrial espionage.

Security consultants say the high skill level of earlier attacks traced to China suggests its military or other government agencies might be stealing technology and trade secrets to help state companies.
The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, said last month that Chinese efforts to steal U.S. technology over the Internet had reached an "intolerable level." He called on the U.S. and other governments to pressure Beijing to stop.